“Ouch! Can you please be gentle? I’m carrying your baby in here!”
“Baby, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t wait anymore,” the man said, his hands immediately roaming all over the woman’s body uninhibitedly.
Indescribable noises quickly drifted out from the cornfield.
Gu Niannian, who happened to be walking by at that moment, was startled by the sounds coming from the roadside cornfield and hurriedly came to a halt.
Why do these sounds-slash-noises sound so strange? And somewhat familiar, too, she thought.
Her instinct for rubbernecking instantly skyrocketed her curiosity, and she held her breath to listen closely.
That somewhat familiar female voice rang out from the cornfield once more: “What’s the big rush? My body will be yours sooner or later anyway!”
As someone who had transmigrated into this world as a baby, Gu Niannian still harbored the soul of an adult inside her body.
Naturally, she understood what was happening inside the cornfield, and her face flushed beet red in an instant.
What made her feel even more ashamed was that the female voice she had just heard actually belonged to Gu Qianqian, her half-sister.
It seemed this piece of gossip was quite a blockbuster.
After all, tomorrow was Gu Qianqian’s wedding day, and Gu Niannian had specifically asked for time off to come back and attend it.
Never in her wildest dreams did she expect to stumble upon Gu Qianqian engaging in unspeakable acts with another man right here.
Gu Niannian almost cried out and quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
Suppressed moans and curses continuously uttered by the man flooded into Gu Niannian’s ears.
Gu Niannian hurriedly covered her ears with her hands as well.
Running into such a thing right at the village entrance was considered extremely bad luck, and Gu Niannian’s body froze in place like she had been petrified.
Just as she was feeling a bit flustered and at a loss for what to do, the voice from the cornfield sounded again.
“If that scapegoat doesn’t come back tonight, wouldn’t your body end up belonging to that kid from the Huo family instead?”
Only then did Gu Qianqian recall the serious business she had left the house to do, and she let out a startled gasp.
“Ouch! Get up quickly, we’re going to mess things up! Dad and Mom told me to go out and pick someone up. By now, Gu Niannian must have already arrived back home. If I stay away much longer, Dad and Mom are going to be worried sick!”
The woman’s anxious voice, tinged with a hint of spoiled cooing, suddenly raised a few octaves, and the man quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.
“My little ancestor, with you shouting this loud, aren’t you afraid someone will hear us?”
A rustling sound quickly came from the cornfield, seeming like the sounds of two people putting their clothes back on.
Coming to her senses amidst all this, Gu Niannian hurriedly gathered up her belongings and bolted away on the run.
When Gu Niannian first transmigrated into this body, the family was living in its most prosperous days.
Having finally given birth to a daughter like Gu Niannian three years after marriage, her parents naturally regarded her as the apple of their eye.
When she was two years old, her grandfather—who had served as an officer in the military—arranged an arranged marriage for Gu Niannian. The boy was Huo Sheng’an, who was five years older than her.
His grandfather, Huo Beilin, was a comrade-in-arms who had shared life-and-death bonds with Old Master Gu.
The two men hit it off instantly, and the match was settled just like that.
Unexpectedly, when Gu Niannian turned eight, her mother suddenly passed away, bringing an abrupt end to her privileged life as a young lady of the house.
Before even a hundred days had passed since her mother’s departure, her father married Ning Yulian into the family, and along with her came Li Qianqian, a girl of roughly the same age as Gu Niannian.
Gu Niannian later learned that her father and Ning Yulian had been entangled long before, and that Gu Qianqian was actually an illegitimate daughter her father had kept outside with a mistress.
Ever since Ning Yulian and her daughter moved into the Gu household, Gu Niannian had not known a single day of peace. It was only thanks to her grandfather’s protection that she managed to scrape by.
When she turned fifteen, her grandfather passed away suddenly, and that was when Gu Niannian’s nightmare in this household truly began.
First, the chores of washing clothes and cooking mostly fell upon her shoulders. Second, without Gu Niannian’s knowledge, her father and stepmother secretly switched her arranged marriage with Huo Sheng’an over to Gu Qianqian.
Gu Niannian only found out about this by chance when she came back home for the Spring Festival last year.
She had never been particularly fond of this arranged marriage anyway, so if they wanted to cancel it, fine by her!
Fortunately, her academic performance had always been exceptionally good, and she had studied all the way up to her senior year of high school.
With the college entrance examination just a month away, her father kept sending people to her school with messages, insisting that she must return home to attend Gu Qianqian’s wedding.
With no other choice left to her, Gu Niannian had no option but to ask for leave and rush back from the county town.
Never could she have imagined that she would run into Gu Qianqian’s shady shenanigans with another man right at the entrance of the village.
Wasn’t this openly planting a lush green grassland right on top of Huo Sheng’an’s head?
Gu Niannian couldn’t help blushing and feeling her heart race. She felt even more contempt for Gu Qianqian in her heart, growing increasingly disgusted. She couldn’t help spitting quietly toward the cornfield.
Bah, truly shameless! She hasn’t learned any proper skills, but she’s managed to master her own mother’s signature tricks.
Thinking this to herself, Gu Niannian moved her feet as if greased with lightning, running extremely fast for fear that Gu Qianqian might discover she had just witnessed her massive scandal.
She ran all the way into the village before her nervous tension finally eased up a little.
Gu Niannian let out a long sigh of relief, then finally walked toward home with a composed step.
As soon as Gu Niannian’s figure appeared at the front door, her father Gu Changlin and stepmother Ning Yulian hurried out to greet her.
Seeing that Gu Niannian was all by herself, the two of them spoke almost simultaneously.
“Niannian, did you see your sister on the way?”
Feeling slightly shaken still, Gu Niannian hurriedly shook her head. “No, I didn’t see her.”
Gu Changlin looked somewhat displeased. “Why did it take you so long to get back? You made your sister run all the way to the village entrance to meet you, and she still hasn’t come back yet.”
Gu Niannian quickly explained, “The bus I was on broke down on the road, and it took the driver over an hour to fix it, so I ended up coming back a bit later.”
The courtyard of the Gu residence was bustling with people coming and going, mostly relatives of the Gu family and neighbors who had come to help out.
Seeing Gu Niannian growing into such a graceful and poised young woman, people couldn’t help praising her from the side.
“This girl Niannian is growing prettier by the day. She’ll definitely be able to marry into a wealthy family someday.”
Hearing this, a flush of red immediately appeared on Gu Niannian’s cheeks.
“Niannian has been sensible since she was little. Once she gets into college later on, she might even end up marrying into a prominent family in the capital.”
“I heard that the one originally betrothed to the Huo family was Niannian. How on earth did it end up getting switched to Qianqian instead?”
“Sigh, don’t you understand that? The Huo family is a prominent clan in Beijing City; which young lady wouldn’t want to marry into them?”
Though the speakers kept their voices very low, every single word still found its way unmissable into Gu Niannian’s ears.
She didn’t seem to care much about it, though—these were all just ancient history and old news anyway. Besides, she had no desire to get married off so early; whoever wanted to marry into that family could just go ahead and do it.
Just as Gu Niannian was pondering to herself, Gu Changlin’s somewhat dissatisfied voice suddenly rang out in the courtyard.
“Qianqian, weren’t you told to go to the village entrance to pick up Niannian? Why is it taking you until now to come back?”